Week 3

Phew! What a week! Monday morning saw us jump on the train at Trento and start a hectic period of travelling/sightseeing. Well equipped for the week...... ......we arrived at our 1st destination having travelled 1st Class!

Our hotel in Bologna was basic but boasted a rooftop terrace......

......with great views across the city.

We were only 5 minutes walk away from the main central square, the Piazzo Maggiore......
......where we saw one rather arrogant (I imagine) policeman claiming something (who knows what?) was THIS big.

The rooftop terrace back at the hotel provided a good space to relax in the late afternoon - we were able to drink our 1Euro wine from the nearby supermarket, read our books and enjoy the beaming sunshine.

We spent two nights in Bologna, eating out both times in restaurants popular with the locals. The first restaurant was a typical Italian pasta house, with spaghetti, tagliatelle, tortelloni, rigatoni, tortogloni, ravioli, penne and every other variation of pasta being hurried out of the kitchen to Italian families who were shouting across the table to one another. We both ate enough to feed us for the week and departed feeling fulfilled, filled full and excited about tomorrow evening's food! The second restaurant didn't disappoint. We'd already spoilt ourselves at a fantastic gelateria during the late afternoon and the atmosphere of this osteria, located in an old brick wine cellar and decorated with antique cooking equipment as well as old wireless radioes, as well as the top quality food and wine, ensured that our lasting memories of Bologna were without doubt all gastronomically-related!

Some difficulties during check-out, whereby the card-reader kept losing reception (and has now resulted in me being charged twice for our stay!), as well as being chauffeured to the train station by the Captain Slow of Bolognese taxi drivers, resulted in us racing down steps from the concourse and back up steps to the platform for the awaiting EurostarItalia train to board with a minute to spare! In our haste to catch the train, we'd sprinted from the ticket machine with our second train ticket still printing! The EurostarItalia runs a very fast service from Bologna to Florence, made possible by the extensive tunnels through the mountains. I anticipated watching the Tuscan hills come into view and for us to wind our way through green fields and past deteriorating smallholdings; however, I simply saw darkness for 10 minutes, then absolutely nothing for 20 seconds while I squinted at the bright light outside the tunnels, then darkness again for another 10 minutes as the train re-entered a mountain base just as my eyes were starting to adjust! We arrived at the main Florence station and purchased two more (!) tickets to Empoli and boarded the train, arriving there at around 2.15pm. Waiting for us at the station was our host for the next four days, Filomina, who drove us back to her home near Lamporecchio. La Casa Medioevale is a renovated farmhouse on a smallholding, where they grow olives for oil on the adjacent hillside in a picturesque valley in central Tuscany. On our arrival, Filo immediately organised us some lunch and invited us to sit in the garden to eat it. We duly obliged and took our time working through a board of mixed salumi and cheeses, warm bread, all washed down with a carafe of red wine.
Filo had organised through a friend for us to hire a car for 3 days, which was delivered to the doorstep that afternoon - Filo organised all the paperwork, which left us to enjoy our lunch and red wine in the garden, making the most of the Italian sunshine!

With the sunshine in mind, and adopting the true English mentality of "Make on while you can" in weather-related situations, Sarah changed into a vest top and her white linen trousers. She was later to rue this decision......

......with the arrival of Chi Cha, who came bounding across the lawn out of nowhere.

At only 5 months old, he has yet to learn what is acceptable to put in his mouth and what is not. Pictured here with his plastic bottle, he was equally happy with logs, brooms, hands, toes, arms, legs - generally whatever would fit!

Continuing our trend of eating good food from our stay in Bologna, we stayed with Filo and her husband, Massimo, for dinner and were spoilt rotten once again. Another board of salumi and cheeses served as an antipasti, as well as a Caprese salad (tomatoes and mozarella). We then proceeded to our primi piatti, pasta served with a hare sauce, which is a typical Tuscan dish, before hitting the main event, the secondi piatti of Florentine steaks all round. This main course was probably one of the best things I've ever tasted, and my eagerness to gobble it all up meant that I simply couldn't eat all of my fresh profiteroles that were served for dessert! We finished with grappe and coffees and went to bed wondering what breakfast might be like in the morning and whether we'd actually be ready to eat it after such a feast!

Morning came (and had nearly gone by the time we made it down for breakfast!) and waiting for us on the dining table was a freshly baked cake as well as yoghurts, toast and fruit juices. Fresh croissants were placed in the oven for us and cups of tea served! Nourished for the day, we set off in our hire car and journey southwards to do a trip round some medieval Tuscan towns. I took great pleasure in driving past a road sign for a town called Castelnuovo and then repeating it over and over again in a Geordie accent all the way to our first stop, Certaldo. We parked up in the town centre, and headed up the funicular railway to the oldest part of the town on the hilltop. Its position gave Sarah the opportunity to photograph the surrounding landscape......
......while I was able to sit and perfect my Grattan catalogue pose. (It was simply too hot to carry an over-the-shoulder jacket, which, you will agree, would've completed the look.)

Throughout Italy, including Certaldo, many locals prefer to travel by Piaggio rather than car, which looks like great fun, unless you're the driver following one up a hill when you're in a hurry!

The old town of Certaldo was cute and very quiet, which allowed us to amble around at our own pace, before wandering back down to the hill at a leisurely pace......

......looking back from time to time to retrace our steps......

......and passing a group of men pruning the roadside olive trees.

Next stop: San Gimignano. Again, unrivalled views across the countryside......

......this town once boasted 72 towers! 14 still stand, making it clearly visible for miles around; unfortunately, tourism has taken over and now tat shops line the streets but the town still retains some of its charm, mainly through its architecture.

Our third and final stop was at Volterra, a town enclosed by a perimeter wall and full of small streets. Unfortunately, its association with the Twilight film series now means that it is virtually impossible to walk for 10 yards without being distracted by a huge poster of Robert Pattinson or Kristen Stewart. Whether it was this or simply "Medieval Tuscan town overload", we left Volterra feeling quite underwhelmed and made our way back to Vinci, Leonardo's birth town, to have a quick look round and to have some dinner. This wooden model based on the Vitruvian Man sketch, is positioned in a piazza overlooking a small valley.

After another freshly-baked cake for breakfast on Friday, we headed out in the car again, this time via the local supermarket to collect some supplies for lunch. We drove to Lucca, eventually found somewhere to park and exited the car into glorious sunshine. Remembering my tendency to turn tomato-red after 90 seconds of sun, we were slapping on the sun cream, only to be interrupted by a middle-aged woman questioning us in a whiny American accent.

"Err wee allard to parruk heere?"
"I think so. There's a parking meter over there," I replied.

"Gee, thanks."

She headed over to said parking meter, beckoning over another of her cronies to help her decipher the English translation on the front of the machine. While Sarah and I were readying ourselves to leave the car, one of the women turned round and shrieked,

"Mary-Jane! Mary-Jane!"

This might not have been the name they shouted but I think it helps to characterise the women here.

"Mary-Jane, do you know what 15:39 is? Is it a code? It says it on our ticket instead of a time!"

Sarah and I looked at each other, raised our eyebrows and took a deep breath, then headed off in the direction of the town centre as fast as we could!

Lucca continued the Italian theme of grand churches......

......and pretty architecture.

Can you guess who it is yet? (Clue: La Boheme, Tosca.) He also wrote Nessun Dorma (Pavarotti's 1990 World Cup song).

Some shop signs were a pleasant respite from the neon monstrosities that go hand-in-hand with tourists.

We tucked into our supermarket supplies on the town wall......

......having raced around it on our rented bicycles!

After lunch, we jumped in the car again and headed further west. We dropped down into Pisa and were kindly directed to a parking space by a North African man who then tried to sell me sunglasses, a handbag and a pack of tissues before I'd even got out of the car. I considered my options as more of his friends appeared from behind other cars and started to encircle us. I sent Sarah to buy a parking ticket and I pretended to fiddle with the radio in the hope that they would disappear. They didn't but we managed to escape and hunt down a brown sign, which we hoped would point us in an appropriate direction. It turns out that any brown sign would point you in the appropriate direction because the leaning tower......

......is right next to the cathedral......

......and that's really all Pisa has to offer! I found the change in roofing material on the Cathedral dome interesting but little else here. A tick on the tourism checklist and we were back in the car within the hour.

Sarah reprogammed the SatNav to avoid toll roads on the way back to our bed, which turned out to be a great move as it not only saved me 1Euro and 57 cents but also gave us the chance to stop the car and admire this aqueduct, which interestingly is not completely continuous along its length due to war damage.

We got back to La Casa Medioevale, got changed and collected the postcode of a recommended local restaurant from Filo. Having been directed by the SatNav into a car park and back out of it, I decided to follow my nose for a little bit and let the SatNav recalculate the route. 30 minutes later, having diced with death on a gravelly hillside trail with a sheer drop at the edge of the track, we arrived back where we'd started. I now had the confidence to travel in the opposite direction, which I did and the SatNav once again recalculated the route. We travelled up another hill (this time on a road, though, fortunately) and reached the summit. We were directed around a circuit of the hill's summit and then guided back down the hill again. We finally found the restaurant at the top of the third hill - it was set right next to a medieval castle with views over the now-dark countryside. Sarah just had time to photograph the sunset before we went inside......

......and found that we were the only customers! Nevertheless, we ate well and returned late to find a carafe of wine waiting for us on the table before we went to bed! In the morning, we returned to Vinci and visited the Leonardo da Vinci museum, which showcased a number of models constructed from his sketches, including a wooden car, a bicycle, a gold press and different cranes that were used for assembling the dome of the Cathedral in Florence. This star-shaped polyhedron was positioned in the piazza directly in front of the museum.

This photograph was taken from next to the earlier-mentioned Vitruvian Man model, looking down into the valley.

On the Saturday afternoon, more people arrived to stay at the farmhouse and 10 of us sat around the dining table for another Italian feast! Massimo brought out a bottle he'd picked up in Thailand. What the picture fails to show is the label claiming that this spirit helped in situations of both impotency and premature ejaculation (?!?).

The night was great fun and gave us the opportunity to meet some new people......

......Andrea and Matteo from Bologna......

......and Rod (from Carnoustie) and Lisa (from Portsmouth).

Sunday morning was a little different weatherwise when we woke up - the heavens had opened! We decided to just head back to Trento as quick as we could and hope that the sun was out a little further north. Filo took us back to Empoli train station and we caught the train to Florence, where it had managed to stop raining and brighten up slightly. Having missed a connection, we had an hour and a half before the train back up to Bologna. Sarah whizzed to the tourist information office for a map, I whizzed to the left luggage stand to get rid of the holdall and then we both raced off to try and cover as many of Florence's tourist hotspots as we could! First stop: the Cathedral......

......and the adjacent bell-tower. These are amazing buildings. The weather had actually benefitted us in that the number of people around Florence was far less than we'd anticipated and as such, we were able to stand and (almost) have the view of the buildings to ourselves!

People were still queueing to get inside, though......

......so we had to settle for an outside view only and head off in search of another tourist attraction.

The Palazzo degli Uffizi is a huge structure and has a number of famous paintings inside. Again, time restrictions meant we had to take a quick snap of it......

......and the statues in the piazza......

......and head down to the Ponte Vecchio.

The bridge looks quite run-down but you can imagine what it would've been like as a hive of activity in previous centuries.

Time had beaten us in Florence and we had to head back to the train station......

......but not before we'd come across an Italian Mini Owners Club meeting point, in a piazza near the station!

Minis of all types and ages were scattered around the piazza......

......which made for some different lens subjects......

......and provided some interest to others who'd come across them too!

What I like about Italy this week:
The Tuscan countryside. Hiring a car and driving it around Tuscany is fantastic. It was a pleasant change from visiting cities!

Food in Bologna - explained earlier.

What I dislike about Italy this week:
Fiat Panda drivers. Not only are they particularly impatient, they're everywhere!
Road cyclists. Firstly, why would any sane man want to dress up in bright-coloured Lycra unless it was for a fancy-dress party? Secondly, why do they think it acceptable to overtake cars when you're driving down mountains? Weaving in and out of cars is dangerous!
Tourists. I accept that I am one but I don't want to buy a T-shirt saying "I love Pisa" or a Barbie riding a bicycle that goes in circles so why does anyone else?

What I miss from/about the UK this week:

Information. This might seem strange but the Italians don't seem to want you to know anything. They place signposts behind other signposts so that you purposefully miss a turning. They fail to tell you that their toll machines only accept credit cards before you've entered the autostrada. In the UK, we are much better at giving and being given information.